Dim Prospects For Legal Reform In An Obama Administration
May 30th, 2008 | By Dan Pero | Category: Tort Reform, Trial Lawyers |
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Ted Frank, director of the AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest and contributor to PointofLaw.com and Overlawyered.com, dissects Barack Obama’s voting record on legal reform legislation in an op-ed this week in the Washington Examiner.
Despite his campaign’s non-partisan or bipartisan or post-partisan pretensions, Frank writes that Sen. Obama’s votes leave little doubt an Obama administration would be captive to powerful special interest groups like the trial lawyer lobby.
Money quote:
“Each amendment [to eviscerate the Class Action Fairness Act] failed by large bipartisan majorities, supported only by Democrats; each time, Obama voted with the trial lawyer lobby.
“These votes were not outliers. Obama also voted to filibuster medical malpractice reform and to kill an asbestos reform bill in 2006, each time providing a critical vote for a minority of senators that blocked tort reforms from achieving a three-fifths supermajority. That is hardly reaching across the aisle, much less showing a willingness to flout a Democratic special interest.”
Like millions of law abiding, working class or retired low and middle income Americans I don’t respect, like or trust anyone who is “in bed” with the lawyers –, and the Democrats are definately “in bed” with the lawyers as they have been for decades..
On the other hand I don’t respect, like or trust anyone who is “in bed” with the bankers,the . isurance industry, the credit bureaus and the rest of the “fine print fraud, rip off, runaround and rotten service” corporate crook culture which has come to be defined as “classic Republican”. Consquently I find it impossible to “identify the least of two evils” -, because it’s a “toss up which party is the least of two evils” –, especially since both major parties are “owned, operated and controlled by a “lawyer majority”. So like millions of my fellow Americans I will probably “tie a blindfold across my eyes, put on a gas mask to keep me from gagging on the stench” and blindly “throw my darts at the target” simply in order to be able to say “I voted –, for all the good it does.
Ivan L. Fail
Missouri.